Over 55,000 Canada’s education workers strike in defiance of ‘draconian’ law

More than 55,000 education workers in Ontario have walked off the job, pledging to strike for “as long as it takes” in defiance a “draconian” new law amid a bitter fight with the provincial government over pay. The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents custodial staff, early childhood education and education support workers, launched the strike on Friday, despite legislation fast-tracked by the Ontario premier, Doug Ford, that bars it from striking and unilaterally imposes a contract on employees.

Ontario fast-tracked passage of Bill 28 earlier this week, which fines striking workers C$4,000 ($2,955; £2,260) a day – nearly a full month’s salary for the average employee. “An important piece of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is being shredded before our very eyes,” the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, warning that Bill 28 shatters the norm of governments restraint in invoking the clause and putting other rights – free speech, freedom of religion – at risk.

— source theguardian.com | 4 Nov 2022

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Pope Apologizes to Indigenous Groups in Canada

On his historic trip across Canada, Pope Francis is apologizing for the abuse of Indigenous children who were removed from their homes and sent to church-run residential schools, where they faced psychological, physical and sexual abuse. Francis made the apology in Maskwacis, Alberta, the site of a former residential school.

The pope’s apology comes seven years after Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission accused the Catholic Church-run residential schools of taking part in a form of “cultural genocide.” The commission determined more than 4,000 Indigenous children died from neglect or abuse in residential schools across Canada. Unmarked graves are still being found. The first residential schools opened in 1883; the last one closed in 1998. During that time, over 150,000 Indigenous children were sent away to rid them of their Native cultures and languages and integrate them into mainstream Canadian society.

it was pretty much what I feared, that it would be one of those very carefully worded apologies where the church itself, the organization, doesn’t take responsibility for their policies and practices, the cover-ups, knowing that there were sex offenders all over the world, not dealing with the sex offenders, protecting them, and that, in fact, they themselves, the church itself, was the one responsible for all of the crimes that were committed by their Christian members because they issued the papal

— source democracynow.org | Jul 26, 2022

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Donor list leak exposes business and far-right forces sponsoring Canada’s “Freedom Convoy”

Data from the crowdfunding website GiveSendGo was leaked online Sunday. It provides insight into the right wing donors who have helped bankroll the far-right “Freedom Convoy” movement, which has occupied the neighborhood around Canada’s parliament in Ottawa for more than two weeks and set up blockades at border crossings with the US.

Endorsed by former President Donald Trump, various January 6 coup plotters, Fox News and the world’s richest man, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the Convoy organizers have been flooded with donations from across Canada, the US and the rest of the world. A GoFundMe initiative raised US $7.9 million before it was shut down for violating the crowdfunding site’s terms of service which prohibit the use of funds to promote violence and harassment.

Following the suspension of the GoFundMe initiative, Convoy organizers moved to GiveSendGo, a self-proclaimed Christian crowdfunding site. GiveSendGo has been used by

— source wsws.org | Niles Niemuth | 16 Feb 2022

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Was the hacking of Ottawa trucker convoy donors a US-Canadian intelligence operation?

On February 13th, the names and personal details of almost 100,000 individuals who donated sums to support the Canadian truckers’ protest against vaccine mandates through the crowdfunding site GiveSendGo appeared online via Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), an online archive seeking to easily connect journalists and researchers with leaked information.

The mainstream media used the trove to frame the convoy as essentially foreign-funded, and harass small donors from average backgrounds. Numerous fascinating nuggets, such as the gifting of $215,000 by a donor whose identity, email, IP address and ZIP code was not recorded by the website, unlike every other giver, were in the process ignored.

The hack-and-leak represented just the latest broadside against the convoy activists. Hours later, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau activated the Emergencies Act for the very first time in Canadian history, an unprecedented move effectively suspending the civil rights of the protesters and granting federal law enforcement the power to seize their bank accounts without a court order.

— source thegrayzone.com | Kit Klarenberg | Feb 18, 2022

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Last Intact Ice Shelf in Canada Collapses Due to Global Warming

The last intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic collapsed and lost a large part of his area due to extremely high temperatures, according to the Canadian Ice Service (CIS), as reported on Friday. Canadian Arctic’s temperature for the current summer is 5C higher than las three decades average. The Milne Ice Shelf lost about 80 square kilometers in July. In 2020, polar ice reduction peaked for the last 40 years. The glaciers retreat and melting initiated in 1850, concurring with the industrialization of productive activities and greenhouse gas emission started.

— source | 7 Aug 2020

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Death of 14-year-old on the job highlights growth of child labor in Canada

A 14-year-old boy lost his life June 15 in a workplace accident at Atelier PJB in Saint-Martin, a village 125 km south of Quebec City. The young worker was crushed by his forklift truck when it overturned. The minimum legal age to drive such a machine in Quebec is 16. Terrible as it was, this event—which highlighted the growth of child labor in Quebec and across Canada—is not an isolated case. In fact, the accident was only the latest in a series in which very young workers have been seriously injured or killed. Last year, a 13-year-old was dragged by a conveyor belt at Bardobec, a cedar wood manufacturing company in Saint-Just-de-Bretenières, a city in southeastern Quebec. The young boy escaped with his life, but suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs and third-degree burns. In another 2019 case, a 17-year-old from Alma, Quebec died after being crushed by a 3,000 kg concrete panel just two weeks after starting work at Béton Préfabriqué du Lac.

— source wsws.org | 23 Jul 2020

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Two hundred thousand Canadian teachers are on strike

Two hundred thousand Ontario teachers and school support staff joined a one-day province-wide strike Friday. The education workers are leading opposition to the sweeping austerity measures that are being implemented by Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government and its premier, the Trump admirer and multi-millionaire businessman Doug Ford. As part of its drive to “make Ontario open for business,” the Ford government is cutting almost a billion dollars per year from education spending, dramatically increasing high school class sizes, eliminating 10,000 teaching positions, and seeking to impose mandatory on-line courses.

— source wsws.org | 22 Feb 2020